North Korea’s nuclear and missile test programmes are mere symptoms of ‘The Cold War in Asia’. It is strange to read that the US expects China and Russia to do enough to stop North Korea. In my analysis, the US is not doing enough to contain the spread of Communism in Asia. This problem dates back to the Communist takeover of mainland China in 1949.

Rudranarasimham Rebbapragada

DOOM DOOMA DOOMSAYER

NORTH KOREA FIRES SECOND MISSILE OVER JAPAN AS US TELLS CHINA AND RUSSIA TO TAKE ‘DIRECT ACTION’

Unnerving alert sirens ring out in Japan in response to North Korea’s missile launch

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The missile, launched from Sunan, the site of Pyongyang’s international airport, flew farther than any other missile North Korea has fired. The distance it flew is slightly greater than between the North Korean capital and the American air base in Guam.

It was "the furthest over ground any of their ballistic missiles has ever travelled", Joseph Dempsey of the International Institute for Strategic Studies said on Twitter.

Physicist David Wright, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, added: "North Korea demonstrated that it could reach Guam with this missile, although the payload the missile was carrying is not known" and its accuracy was in doubt.

Sirens sounded and alerts were issued in Japan as residents were warned to take shelter while the missile passed over Hoakkaido.

"We can never tolerate that North Korea trampled on the international community’s strong, united resolve toward peace that has been shown in UN resolutions and went ahead again with this outrageous act," Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, said.

Jim Mattis, US Defence Secretary, called the latest missile launch a reckless act and "put millions of Japanese in duck and cover".

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged China and Russia to do more to rein in North Korea.

"China and Russia must indicate their intolerance for these reckless missile launches by taking direct actions of their own," Mr. Tillerson said in a statement.

China said it "opposes" the test, but reiterated its call that "all parties" should exercise restraint.

"The situation on the Korean Peninsula is complicated and sensitive,” a spokeswoman said.

In response to the launch, South Korea’s military immediately carried out a ballistic missile drill of its own, the Defence ministry said, adding it took place while the North’s rocket was still airborne.

One Hyunmu missile travelled 250 kilometers into the East Sea, Korea’s name for the Sea of Japan – a trajectory intentionally chosen to represent the distance to the launch site at Sunan, near Pyongyang’s airport, it added.

But embarrassingly, another failed soon after being fired.

President Moon Jae-In told an emergency meeting of Seoul’s national security council that dialogue with the North was "impossible in a situation like this", adding that the South had the power to destroy it.

In New York, the Security Council called an emergency meeting for later on Friday.

However, a North Korean official said Pyongyang would continue to defy sanctions.

Choe Kang-il, deputy director general for North American affairs at the North’s foreign ministry, said: “You can impose whatever sanctions you want, but no matter how long these sanctions last – whether it is for 100 or 1,000 years – we will keep stepping up efforts and continue with our planned tests.”

North Korea last month used the airport to fire a Hwasong-12 intermediate range missile that flew over northern Japan.

The North then declared it a "meaningful prelude" to containing the U.S. Pacific island territory of Guam and the start of more ballistic missile launches toward the Pacific Ocean.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga denounced North Korea’s latest launch, saying he was conveying "strong anger" on behalf of the Japanese people.

Mr. Suga said Japan "will not tolerate the repeated and excessive provocations."

The latest missile launch by North Korea must be met with a united international response, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has urged.

Mr. Johnson condemned the test as "illegal" and the latest sign of "provocation" from Pyongyang.

"Yet another illegal missile launch by North Korea. UK and international community will stand together in the face of these provocations," he said on Twitter.

In a subsequent statement, he added: "The UK and the international community have condemned the aggressive and illegal actions of the North Korean regime, and the succession of missile and nuclear tests. We stand firmly by Japan and our other international partners.

"We are working to mobilize world opinion with the aim of achieving a diplomatic solution to the situation on the Korean peninsula.

"This week the most stringent UN sanctions regime placed on any nation in the 21st century was imposed on North Korea, after being unanimously agreed at the UN Security Council.

"These measures now need to be robustly enforced. We urge all states to play their part in changing the course North Korea is taking."

Before the latest launch, Mr. Johnson had called for China to use its influence over North Korea to ease tensions caused by Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile development programmes.

At a press conference with US counterpart Rex Tillerson on Thursday, Mr. Johnson said Pyongyang had "defied the world".

What kinds of missile was launched by North Korea?

The missile was launched from Sunan, the location of Pyongyang’s international airport and the origin of the earlier missile that flew over Japan.

Analysts have speculated the new test was of the same intermediate-range missile launched in that earlier flight, the Hwasong-12, and was meant to show Washington that the North can hit Guam if it chose to do so.

‘This latest test is proof"

North Korea’s launch of a ballistic missile that flew more than 2,300 miles before falling into the Pacific Ocean is a "clear and unequivocal" message to the United States that Pyongyang has the ability to strike Guam.

The distance from Pyongyang to Guam is a little over 2,100 miles and North Korea identified it as a target in early August, threatening to launch four Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missiles into waters close to the island.

North Korea has threatened to attack the US base in Guam Credit: Reuters

The intention, according to analysts, was to demonstrate that Pyongyang would have no compunction in the event of war from targeting the resort island in order to interrupt air attacks on the North as well as efforts to reinforce ground forces on the Korean Peninsula.

"From previous launches and the altitude and ranges of those missiles, it has been assumed that Guam is within range of the North’s missiles, but this latest test is proof", Garren Mulloy, a Defence expert and associate professor of international relations at Japan’s Daito Bunka University, told The Telegraph.

South Korean missile test fails

South Korean President Moon Jae-in ordered his military to conduct a live-fire ballistic missile drill in response to the North Korean launch.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said one of the two missiles fired in the drill hit a sea target about 250 kilometers (155 miles) away, which was approximately the distance to Pyongyang’s Sunan, but the other failed in flight shortly after launch.

‘This rocket has meaning’

North Korea has launched dozens of missiles under young leader Kim Jong -un as it accelerates a weapons programme designed to give it the ability to target the United States with a powerful, nuclear-tipped missile.

Two tests in July were for long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching at least parts of the US mainland.

Yang Uk, a senior research fellow at the Korea Defence and Security Forum said:

"This rocket has meaning in that North Korea is pushing towards technological completion of its missiles and that North Korea may be feeling some pressure that they need to show the international community something."

"North Korea is a terrorist nation

"Japanese people have not been subjected to this kind of threat since the end of the war more than 70 years ago", Ken Kato, a Tokyo-based human rights activist, told the Telegraph..

"People genuinely feel that unless something is done quite soon, then their families are at risk", he told The Telegraph. "This is the situation we are in now and we have to adapt to these realities, but these missile launches and nuclear tests are leading a lot of people to conclude that Japan needs its own nuclear deterrent.

A passerby walks under a TV screen reporting news about North Korea’s missile launch in Tokyo Credit: Reuters

"Personally, the launch did not come as much of a surprise because this is becoming a fact of life for us in Japan", he said. "But there is also a growing sense of anger among ordinary people.

"North Korea is a terrorist nation and I expect this situation to escalate even further,"

North Korea said earlier this month it was developing a hydrogen bomb that can carry out an EMP attack. Experts disagree on whether the North would have the capability to mount such an attack, which would involve setting off a bomb in the atmosphere that could cause major damage to power grids and other infrastructure.

Tillerson: China not doing enough

Abe: North Korea’s actions can’t be tolerated

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says United Nations sanctions on North Korea needed to be firmly imposed.

Abe said that the international community must send a clear message to North Korea over its provocative actions.

"We can never tolerate that North Korea trampled on the international community’s strong, united resolve toward peace that has been shown in UN resolutions and went ahead again with this outrageous act."

‘Steady as she goes’

US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis says North Korea’s missile launch over Japan "put millions of Japanese into duck and cover" before it landed in the Pacific Ocean, and added that top US officials had fully coordinated after the test-launch.

"We have just got done with the calls we always make to coordinate among ourselves. Steady as she goes," Mattis told reporters traveling with him during a visit to the U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees U.S. nuclear forces.

UN Security Council to meet on Friday

The United Nations Security Council will meet at 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT) on Friday on the latest North Korea missile test, diplomats said, at the request of the United States and Japan.

The 15-member Security Council unanimously stepped up sanctions against North Korea on Monday over its Sept. 3 nuclear test, imposing a ban on the country’s textile exports and capping imports of crude oil. It was the ninth U.N. sanctions resolution adopted on North Korea since 2006.

Pressure on China

In confronting North Korea’s latest provocation, the focus will almost certainly shift once again to Beijing, China Correspondent Neil Connor says.

Donald Trump has warned that the United States would cease trading with any country that trades with North Korea – comments which were met with concern in China. And in London only hours before Pyongyang fired its latest projectile, the US secretary of state Rex Tillerson urged China to use its supply of oil to North Korea as leverage against the regime.

"That is a very powerful tool and it has been used in the past," Tillerson said at a news conference. "We hope China will not reject that."

In 2003, China shut down its oil pipeline to North Korea for three days after a missile launch. Officials said it was due to a mechanical failure, although it was thought to be deliberate and ultimately helped force a climb-down from Pyongyang.

US believe it was an intermediate range ballistic missile

The US Pacific Command says initial assessment indicates the projectile was an intermediate range ballistic missile.

It said the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) determined this ballistic missile did not pose a threat to North America, nor Guam.

"Our commitment to the Defence of our allies, including the Republic of Korea and Japan, in the face of these threats, remains ironclad. We remain prepared to defend ourselves and our allies from any attack or provocation.

North Korea tries to win more military space

South Korean experts said the August launch was Pyongyang’s attempt to make missiles flying over Japan an accepted norm as it seeks to test new projectiles and win more military space in the region dominated by its enemies.

The Offices of Guam Homeland Security and Civil Defence said the latest launch posed no immediate threat to Guam or the Marinas.

South Korea conducts drill in response

South Korea’s Defence Ministry said the country’s military conducted a live-fire drill of a Hyunmoo-2 ballistic missile in response to the North’s launch on Friday.

It came two days after it said it conducted its first live-fire drill for an advanced air-launched cruise missile it says will strengthen its pre-emptive strike capability against North Korea in the event of crisis.

US assumes nuclear test was H bomb

The missile test has come shortly after the top commander of U.S. nuclear forces said he assumed the Sept. 3 nuclear test by North Korea was a hydrogen bomb, suggesting a heightened US concern that the North has advanced to a new level of nuclear firepower.

Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten, commander of Strategic Command, told reporters that while he was not in a position to confirm it, he assumes from the size of the underground explosion and other factors that it was a hydrogen bomb – which is a leap beyond the fission, or atomic, bombs North Korea has previously tested.

This before-and-after images courtesy of Planet, show a closer view of the Punggye-ri test site Credit: AFP

North Korea claimed they exploded a hydrogen bomb, and while U.S. officials have not contradicted them, they have not confirmed it, either.

"When I look at a thing that size, I as a military officer assume that it’s a hydrogen bomb," Hyten said. As head of Strategic Command, he would be in charge of all elements of the U.S. nuclear force in the event of nuclear war.

"I have to (assume this)," he added, "I have to make that assumption. What I saw equates to a hydrogen bomb. I saw the event. I saw the indications that came from that event. I saw the size, I saw the reports, and therefore to me I’m assuming it was a hydrogen bomb."

Japan strongly protests missile launch

The missile was launched at 6:57 a.m. Japan time (2157 GMT), flew over Hokkaido and splashed down at 7:06 a.m. (2206 GMT) some 2,000 kilometers east of the northern island’s Cape Erimo, he said.

Japan protests the latest launch in the strongest terms and will take appropriate and timely action at the United Nations and elsewhere, staying in close contact with the United States and South Korea, Suga told reporters.

The Japanese government’s alert message called J-alert notifying citizens of a ballistic missile launch by North Korea is seen on a television screen in Tokyo Credit: Reuters

Japanese residents warned not to approach parts of missile

South Korea convenes emergency meeting

South Korea’s presidential Blue House has called an urgent National Security Council meeting.

The North’s launch comes a day after the North threatened to sink Japan and reduce the United States to "ashes and darkness" for supporting a U.N. Security Council resolution imposing new sanctions against it for its Sept. 3 nuclear test.

The North previously launched a ballistic missile from Sunan on Aug. 29 which flew over Japan’s Hokkaido island and landed in the Pacific waters.